On the Death of Dr.Seuss

Incredibly
indelibly
it’s etched in my head
of a night
long ago
while lying in bed
with child number one
and child number two
I discovered a Horton
and his new friend,
the Who.

We read without stopping
for a year
maybe three
halting for nothing
but biscuits and tea.

We perused the stories
of Lorax and Leet.
We read all the way
to Mulberry Street.

The Cat in the Hat
went wild round our bed.
"He’d sure make Mom angry!"
My littlest said.

We laughed over Sneetches
and the Butter Battle Book.
We picked up On Beyond Zebra
and roared with each look.

Read, did we read!
Read, we did more!
We giggled and wheezed,
we squealed. We got sore!

Even this wasn’t enough
for we, voracious three.
There’s too much to read!
There’s too much to see!

So quick as we could,
my wife, she and me,
we set out to make
child number three!

With mission accomplished,
new child in our bed,
we picked up more books
that we hadn’t yet read.

Marvin K. Mooney,
the kids thought was cool.
While my choice was surely
McElligot’s Pool.

We read them all through
six zillion times.
We loved the pictures,
the words and the rhymes.

But now as you know
our author has died
and kids of all ages
have wept and we’ve cried.

Still, I suspect
our friend called the Dr.
would have us do something
much closer to laughter.

So tonight in my bed
I’ll gather my readers
and remember our friend
with twiddles and tweeders.